More jobs is great, but can or will car buyers really support another car company with no dealer network and stiff competition from the imports? Kiss that $528M goodbye.

So we will have 2 government entities battling for the same market on government dime? Hey we may get the same level of capitalism as they have in Cuba?

Will these cars sell?

^ Will they sell 100,000 a year is the question

..the answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind..

I prefer when something else is blowing in the wind, which does not cost 528 millions.

MerkMark… yes.
armstealer… no.
The real question is where’s that middle ground going to be. Fortunately for Fisker it was only the government they had to baffle with their bullsh*t.

I’m going to have to take the pessimistic side of this one.

So a new, upstart, high-tech AMERICAN automobile manufacturer – who is developing BEAUTIFUL cars – is adding jobs, reopening a plant, all while pushing the envelope of technology, and all you guys do is run them into the ground? The lack of maturity, if not common sense on this site never ceases to amaze me.

Architect, how the hell we can run Fisker into the ground? Don’t answer it: I will not spend 100K on a car, even if I get 42K tax credit. Yes the cars are beautiful, but the idea of those cars being build for Pelosia, Boxer (elected officials from Fisker homestate) and VP Biden (former senator from Delaware) is not exciting me. For once it will cost 528 millions to manufacture cars and then there will be credit for those “needy” of us who can’t “afford” 100K car. Something wrong with this democracy when the rest of the country is subsidizing cars for wealthy few, or am I wrong? And I even don’t care if they sell 100K cars, it is sickening already. Just give union leaches 175 millions to live to the rest of their natural lives and it will be cheaper for society.

The car is supposed to sticker for $39.999, but the lack of a widespread dealer network and other vehicles rounding out its offerings have already doomed the prospect of success.

After all, the existing auto companies started small and it has taken decades for them to flourish and then implode.

Architect- I’m not happy an American company is wasting tax money on cars that only a very small group will buy. Plus there will be giant batteries filling junk yards in the next few years. We should be pushing CNG cars more than battery cars.

Why does questioning bad business constitute immaturity?

MercMark/Borat – because I’m still trying to figure out what in the article above (or any other knowledge by all of “us” pathetic hacks on here) constitutes a bad business plan? The fact that they received stimulus money? WTH? Who hasn’t? Furthermore, just about every innovative technology gestated in America the past 50 years has been funded by massive R&D grants from the federal government, or do you have no idea how we’ve dominated world innovation and emerging technologies?

@ Architect… I bet, you don’t watch FOX NEWS…

The Right – Wing Juggernaut news out let, the same people that still give “Ex-Vice President, DICK” a mic. to speck into always take it on them self’s to miss inform any one that’s willing to watch it’s B.S.

I had a good valid point to say, but the truth is that no one is going to listen, and I rather spend my time dealing with customers on the showroom floor, time’s are tough…

But I will say this, it’s doesn’t matter what say, because it all ready happen, just hope some how, some way you get a peace of the pie also….

It seems they are building the “Project NINA” at this plant, not the Karma. NINA is around $40,000. They will sell, but at first it will probably be around 30,000 cars. In a couple of years, I can see them selling 100,000 a year. Technology will improve, prices will fall, and I think this is good news.

yarddog82abn…I have absolutely no idea what you just said.

This is Good for America ! Damn it American Workers Working On Cars Produced In America !

The Old Tried True Economic Adage “It Takes Money To Make Money” Every new Technology is expensive at first, they will make a vehicle that will be less than half the price the current vehicle cost. This country does not produce anything any longer. Where are Americans supposed to work? We have a populace of 305 Million where are they suppose to work when All of Fox Entertainment News supports every CEO and every Politician that will Beg. Borrow and Steal to send American jobs over seas so they can make more money simply for greed !

The Money Is A “loan” People it will be “Repaid”. I repeat “Repaid” Chrysler repaid an loan Early and the US Government made a “Profit” from the “Loan”

-Sarge

Shame that the plant Fisker is buying produced one of the better sporty attempts out of GM in recent years. The Solstice/Sky was a flawed car but in another iteration the platform could have been improved. Now we’ll never know.

Back on topic, it’s too early to tell whether or not this bid will pay off in profit and the sustainment of consistent employ for workers. Marketing from the top to the bottom and betting on early adopters in the new car industry is still an unproven business model either way.

Has Fiskar announced how they intend to sell and service these vehicles?. It appears Fiskar is purely “vaporware” until the distribution network is expained. All I know is I hope they DO NOT use Tesla’s idea of how to sell and service vehicles. I cannot even buy a vehicle from Tesla because I do not live in the prescribed zip codes that Tesla wants to sell in. This is Ameica and if I want to buy a vehicle I want it where ever I live…my choise. I can buy one, but only second hand, used. Fiskar, please sign up dealers that will sell to everyone….stay out of the retail side, stay a manufactorer!!!

Here’s a Wild Thoughts….

Saturn Dealers don’t have a car to sell…

Fisker Automotive doesn’t have any dealers…

GM needs money, period.

Fisker seems to have some…

Let’s not have more empty dealerships than we have to…

WIBoomer1 – good idea!

To everyone else who thinks America doesn’t produce anything anymore…the U.S. is BY FAR the world’s largest manufacturer. China is second (and gaining fast), but produces only one-half of what the U.S. does. The most interesting fact is that the U.S. produced 28% of the world’s total manufacturing in 1990. In 2007, it was STILL 28%. So, China’s growth has technically been at everyone else’s expense.

http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2008/09/23/top-manufacturing-countries-in-2007/

The Death of American Manufacturing

However, manufacturing as a share of the economy has been plummeting. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53 percent of the economy. By 1988 it only accounted for 39 percent, and in 2004, it accounted for just 9 percent. However, the auto industry is just one example of the overall decline in American industrial might over the past couple of decades. Other U.S. manufacturing giants are failing, too; in fact, the U.S. has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs just since 1998. In 2003, industrial giant Bethlehem Steel folded, causing thousands of employees and retirees to lose their pensions. Any Pittsburgh resident would be able to tell you how unprofitable the steel industry has been over the last 20 or so years. Between 1950 and 2000, the U.S. lost more than 491,000 jobs from the primary metals industry alone—most of those after 1980; from 2000 to 2003, an additional 149,000 of these jobs vaporized. In 2004, Levi Strauss closed the last of its more than 60 American factories. “It was like a death in the family,” said Emma Rice, of Morrilton, Arkansas, who worked for Levi Strauss for 32 years (Times, London, Jan. 10, 2004). Unfortunately, the former Levi-employed majority of Morrilton tell the same tale as those from thousands of towns across America that have also experienced the loss of manufacturing jobs.
http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=1955

Manufacturing Jobs are gone in the country

-Sarge

Sarge – did you read my post? Of course manufacturing has changed, but that’s not fundamentally a bad thing. Much of that loss has been replaced by higher wage, higher tech employment country-wide – fully expected as the market matures.